These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.
Welcome
Welcome to worship at McPherson First United Methodist Church. Whether you’ve worshiped here for years or you’re walking through these doors for the first time, in person or online, you belong here.
Today we begin a new six-week series, As For Me and My House, tracing God’s covenant people from Joshua’s bold choice to a promised kingdom of peace. The promise we lean on most today is witness, the choices we make that others end up watching and learning from.
If you’re looking for your next step, visit mcphersonfirst.org/next or open the Church Center app.
(8:30 only, transition to the Call to Worship) I invite you to join in our responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.
Call to Worship (8:30 only)
Leader: Long ago, Joshua gathered God’s people and asked them to choose.
People: We still stand at that same crossroads today.
Leader: The Lord has been faithful through every generation before us.
People: We choose to trust the God who has carried our family this far.
Leader: Other voices call for our loyalty, our time, our worship.
People: As for us and our house, we will serve the Lord.
Leader: Come and worship the God who chooses us first.
People: We gather to renew our covenant and give God our praise.
Welcome Your Neighbor
Joshua chose out loud, so his family knew exactly where he stood. That’s what witness looks like, a choice someone else can see.
Think of someone whose faith has gone quiet, worn down or drifted. What would it take for them to feel the door here is still open?
Watching from home this morning? Consider yourself greeted right along with everyone else. Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and remain standing as we sing together.
Opening Prayer
We’ve lifted our voices in song. Now settle your heart and pray with me, using the words on screen, as we ask God to search us the way Joshua searched Israel’s heart.
All: God of our ancestors, you have carried us farther than we could have imagined. Search our hearts today, and show us where our loyalties truly lie. Give us courage to choose you again, and to keep choosing you tomorrow. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Joshua 24:1-15 (CEB)
(Read by a lay reader. The reader introduces themselves and offers one brief sentence of personal connection to the congregation before reading.)
Today we hear from Joshua, the book that follows Israel into the land God promised them. It picks up after Moses has died and forty years in the wilderness are over. By the end, Joshua is an old man who has seen the whole journey, and he gathers the nation one last time.
Listen for how many times God says “I” before Joshua ever asks the people to choose anything.
Hear now Joshua, chapter 24, verses 1 through 15.
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders of Israel, its leaders, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. Then Joshua said to the entire people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates. They served other gods. Among them was Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. I took Abraham your ancestor from the other side of the Euphrates. I led him around through the whole land of Canaan. I added to his descendants and gave him Isaac. To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Mount Seir to Esau to take over. But Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron. I plagued Egypt with what I did to them. After that I brought you out. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. The Egyptians chased your ancestors with chariots and horses to the Reed Sea. Then they cried for help to the Lord. So he set darkness between you and the Egyptians. He brought the sea down on them, and it covered them. With your own eyes you saw what I did to the Egyptians. You lived in the desert for a long time.
Then I brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They attacked you, but I gave them into your power, and you took over their land. I wiped them out before you. Then Moab’s King Balak, Zippor’s son, set out to attack Israel. He summoned Balaam, Beor’s son, to curse you. But I wasn’t willing to listen to Balaam, so he actually blessed you. I rescued you from his power. Then you crossed over the Jordan. You came to Jericho, and the citizens of Jericho attacked you. They were Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites. But I gave them into your power. I sent the hornet before you. It drove them out before you and did the same to the two kings of the Amorites. It wasn’t your sword or bow that did this. I gave you land on which you hadn’t toiled and cities that you hadn’t built. You settled in them and are enjoying produce from vineyards and olive groves that you didn’t plant.
So now, revere the Lord. Serve him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the Lord.”
Leader: This is the Word of God for the people of God.
People: Thanks be to God!
Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer
We’re about to pray together. Whether you’re here or joining online, God hears every prayer, spoken aloud or held quietly in your heart. I’ll leave a couple of moments of silence along the way, so use them however you need, to listen, to pray, or simply to rest in God’s presence.
Prayers is one of the promises we make here. To share a prayer request, use the Church Center app anytime, or fill out a prayer request card from the pew back and drop it in the offering plate.
Will you pray with me?
God who has led your people since Abraham first left everything he knew, we come before you as your household still.
(pause)
We praise you for every generation of faith that brought us here: parents who prayed for us before we could pray for ourselves, teachers who first spoke your name over us, a church that has kept choosing you for more than a century.
But we confess that other gods still compete for our loyalty. We serve comfort when it asks less of us than you do. We serve busyness and call it faithfulness. We serve the opinions of people who barely know us, and forget the God who knows us completely. Forgive the ways we have quietly chosen something smaller than you.
We offer these confessions to you now in the quiet.
(pause)
We lift up this congregation as we launch a new season: give us the courage of Joshua, willing to choose you out loud. We pray for those here carrying grief, illness, or a fear no one else can see; steady them. We pray for our community, that it would find in this church a people who still choose you. We pray for a world worn thin by conflict, that your peace would take root where it is least expected.
We give you thanks for this church and its long line of faithful laypeople, serving in ways large and small.
We pray in Jesus’ name, joining our voices in the prayer he taught us:
All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Invitation to Give and Check-In
Joshua reminded the people that everything they had, the land, the harvest, the homes they hadn’t built, came from God’s hand before it was ever theirs. Our gifts answer a generosity that was already there.
Thank you to those who give month after month, quietly and steadily. And if today is your first time giving, thank you for taking that step with us.
You can give through the offering plate, online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or through the Church Center app, the easiest way to give from your phone.
I also invite you to check in through the Church Center app or the attendance pad next to the center aisle, passed down the row so others can sign in too. Checking in is a small act of presence, marking that you were part of the body this morning.
Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
We’ve given our gifts and offered our prayers. Now we’re sent to practice service, to be God’s hands and feet in a place that needs to see what faithful people still look like. Will you pray with me?
Generous God, thank you for every gift shared here today. Use them to carry your love into McPherson and beyond. Send us out to serve as Joshua’s household served, with our whole hearts. Amen.
Will you please stand as we sing together?
Benediction
Go now, choosing whom you will serve. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.
God calls you, Christ leads you, the Spirit strengthens you today. And all God’s people said, Amen.